Eight Things to Consider When Saving Vegetable Seeds

The directions for seed saving in our last book, Making It, almost got cut. Perhaps we should have just changed those directions to “Why it’s OK to buy seeds.” The fact is that it’s not easy to save the seeds of many vegetables thanks to the hard work of our bee friends. That being said, Shannon Carmody of Seed Saver’s Exchange gave a lecture at this year’s Heirloom Exposition with some tips for ambitious gardeners who want to take up seed saving...

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Saturday Linkages: DIY Coffee Roasting and That Crazy Rhubarb Lady

...k.com/the-ten-most-ambitious-failed-utopian-mass-transit-syst-1135019271 … Making a Case to Phase Out “Beg Buttons” in Santa Monica’s Pedestrian Action Plan http://disq.us/8elfzy Meet Streetmix, the Website Where You Can Design Your Own Street » good read http://www.streetsblog.org/2013/08/12/meet-streetmix-the-website-where-you-can-design-your-own-street/ … Werner Herzog Made a Documentary About Texting While Driving. And It’s Haunting. http://ww...

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Cat Litter Compost, Installment #3

...nce its not scoopable, you have to dump the whole tray rather often, which leads to a fast build up of material. If you have room for it, this might be okay. (I’ll have more to say about pine litter further down, though.) 4) You have to add extra nitrogen to your pile to make it work. Even though it’s plenty stinky, the nitrogen present in cat waste can’t balance the heavy carbon loads of the litter by itself. (Note: You should be an experienced c...

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Dovetails by Hand

...d, outdated hand skills just for the sake of those skills. You can make perfectly serviceable drawers entirely by machine but if you have the time and are making things for yourself not for work, I think doing it by hand is the way to go....

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